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TZID:America/New_York
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230731T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230731T140000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230616T132724Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230616T132724Z
UID:10007590-1690808400-1690812000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:PSOC@Penn Seminar:  Yiming Wang & Ison Chen
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/psocpenn-seminar-kshitiz-parihar-ison-chen/
LOCATION:Raisler Lounge (Room 225)\, Towne Building\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar,Doctoral,Graduate,Student
ORGANIZER;CN="PSOC":MAILTO:manu@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230728T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230728T160000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230720T181509Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230720T181509Z
UID:10007609-1690542000-1690560000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:Penn American Red Cross Blood Drive
DESCRIPTION:There is currently a critical need for blood donors\, and members of the Penn Engineering community are invited to participate in a school-wide blood drive. To join in this effort\, please RSVP using this link.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/penn-american-red-cross-blood-drive/
LOCATION:Bodek Lounge\, Houston Hall\, 3417 Spruce St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Faculty,Doctoral,Graduate,Student,Master's,Undergraduate,Staff
ORGANIZER;CN="Bioengineering":MAILTO:be@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230725T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230725T113000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230711T193536Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230711T193536Z
UID:10007608-1690279200-1690284600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Seminar: "Bistable Robots: Leveraging Task Features for Actuator Reduction"
DESCRIPTION:Actuator reduction is especially important for aerial robots\, where minimizing mass and conserving power is critical. Bistable mechanisms have been used to augment actuators by speeding up actuation time or allowing one direction of actuation to be passive. In this talk we will explore how bistable mechanisms can reduce the number of actuators needed in robotic applications. Traditional quadrotors exhibit agile flight\, hovering\, and landing. Inspired by birds and bats\, recent developments aim to augment the capabilities of quadrotors with gliding or perching capabilities. However\, current solutions require the addition of actuators. We demonstrate that bistable mechanisms can allow robots to exploit features in the task or environment to gain the desired functionality passively. Perching is an inherently contact-rich task\, and incorporating a bistable structure enables us to exploit contacts for passive grasping and releasing. Flight is a highly dynamic task\, and we demonstrate that bistable structures enable us to exploit inertia for passive wing deployment. Thus\, bistability enables us to endow aerial robots with additional capabilities without adding additional motors.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-seminar-bistable-robots-leveraging-task-features-for-actuator-reduction/
LOCATION:Moore 212
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230724T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230724T140000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230616T132453Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230616T132453Z
UID:10007589-1690203600-1690207200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:PSOC@Penn Seminar: Sadjad Arzash & Ping Zhou
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/psocpenn-seminar-sadjad-arzash-ping-zhou/
LOCATION:Raisler Lounge (Room 225)\, Towne Building\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar,Postdoctoral
ORGANIZER;CN="PSOC":MAILTO:manu@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230718T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230718T113000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230706T163023Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230706T163023Z
UID:10007606-1689674400-1689679800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Seminar: "Hydrogel (fracture) Mechanics with Applications to the Study of Blood Clots"
DESCRIPTION:Blood clotting is primarily responsible for stemming bleeding in vessel injury\, comprising a protective mechanism called hemostasis. However\, if a blood clot forms within a blood vessel when or where it is not needed\, this can result in death and disability. Blood clots and thrombi are composed of blood cells embedded into a polymeric fibrin network. The network is highly swollen with liquid (<1% solid volume fraction); biphasic porous media of such kind are called hydrogels. Both the solid and liquid phase\, as well as their combined behavior\, determine the properties of the hydrogel material. In this talk\, we endeavor to understand the behavior of blood clots and thrombi\, which are essential for hemostasis and thrombosis\, by utilizing a continuum mechanics framework for hydrogels. \nLoading of biological and synthetic hydrogels involves large deformations\, and there exists a large literature devoted to their experimental characterization. Analytical investigations have recognized the importance of contributions originating from the liquid phase\, while experiments have verified it. The liquid flux fields usually exhibit fully three-dimensional profiles and are time dependent. This coupled mechanical-diffusional poroelastic problem presents an abundance of interesting phenomena. One such interesting observation in many experiments is the tendency of the hydrogel material to expel liquid under tension. This behavior is well-documented in biological swollen tissues\, but it appears to be absent from the vast majority of synthetic hydrogels. On the contrary synthetic gels swell during stretching\, provided there is liquid to absorb from the surrounding environment. This motivates three types of boundary conditions in the coupled mechanical-diffusion problem for hydrogels: 1) gel immersed in a bath (permeable boundary conditions)\, 2) gel insulated from bath (impermeable)\, or 3) gel in an environment with a specific ambient moisture. In this talk all these boundary conditions and their implications will be discussed. The solid volume fraction\, loading rate\, type of loading\, as well as geometry\, influence the response of hydrogels dramatically. These factors are studied separately with some highlights from this study being presented. The energy release rate\, a fundamental quantity of fracture mechanics\, is computed using a poroelastic modified path (or surface)-independent J-integral. Liquid flow is shown to contribute an important amount to the energy release rate. Intriguingly\, this contribution can be either positive or negative\, the meaning of which will be discussed. To accommodate better understanding of the liquid contribution on the fracture energetics of these materials\, a critical stretch criterion is adopted which is motivated from experimental evidence. Under critical conditions\, the energy release rate is the fracture toughness of the material and its relation to the coupled response will be explained. These observations can be utilized to design toughening mechanisms for hydrogels based solely on the liquid phase of the material. The methods that will be presented can be utilized to analyze a wide variety of problems from mechano-chemical loading of biological and synthetic hydrogels to failure/damaging of batteries and large-scale soil mechanics.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-seminar-hydrogel-fracture-mechanics-with-applications-to-the-study-of-blood-clots/
LOCATION:Moore 212
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230717T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230717T140000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230616T131956Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230616T131956Z
UID:10007588-1689598800-1689602400@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:PSOC@Penn Seminar: Gabriel Witek & Marco Aurelio Galvani Cunha
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/psocpenn-seminar-gabriel-witek-marco-aurelio-galvani-cunha/
LOCATION:Raisler Lounge (Room 225)\, Towne Building\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar,Doctoral,Graduate,Student,Postdoctoral
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230714T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230714T133000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230703T125221Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230703T125221Z
UID:10007605-1689336000-1689341400@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CBE PhD Thesis Defense: "BIJEL-Templated Advanced Functional Materials for a Sustainable Future"
DESCRIPTION:Advanced functional materials comprising multiple components with nano- and microscopic features typically rely on expensive and time-consuming fabrication methods. Kinetically-trapped disordered structures provide a powerful alternate route to fabricate fault-tolerant\, multi-component functional structures at scale. Developing such structures with controllable features that could serve as materials templates for various applications is of great importance. Bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels (bijels) are kinetically trapped disordered biphasic materials that can be converted to porous materials with tunable features. The self-assembled nature of the bijel structure\, coupled with its remarkable flexibility in terms of features and constituent materials\, positions it as a highly promising material for the advancement of functional porous materials. However\, the practical utilization of bijels is hindered by several challenges that need to be addressed. This study aims to overcome these challenges by simplifying the fabrication process\, improving control over bijel features\, and demonstrating their practical functions. To achieve scalable fabrication\, the vaporization induced phase separation (VIPS) method is introduced\, enabling bijel production under ambient conditions. The importance of quenching kinetics is also revealed\, leading to the achievement of bijels with uniform sub-micrometer domains through regulated co-solvent removal. Furthermore\, the unique structure of bijels allows for intriguing interactions with light\, fluids\, and electrons. This is exemplified by the successful development of bijel templated passive radiative cooling coatings and carbon air cathodes\, showcasing the exceptional functionality of bijels.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cbe-phd-thesis-defense-bijel-templated-advanced-functional-materials-for-a-sustainable-future/
LOCATION:Towne 225
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering":MAILTO:cbemail@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230714T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230714T130000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230627T161203Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230627T161203Z
UID:10007600-1689332400-1689339600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:ESE PhD Thesis Defense: "Discrete and Continuous Optimization for Collaborative and Multi-task Learning"
DESCRIPTION:This thesis is dedicated to addressing the challenges of robust collaborative learning and optimization in both discrete and continuous domains. With the ever-increasing scale of data and the growing demand for effective distributed learning\, a multitude of obstacles emerge\, including communication limitations\, resilience to failures and corrupted data\, limited information access\, and collaboration in multi-task learning scenarios. The thesis consists of seven chapters\, each targeting specific aspects of these challenges. \nIn the first chapter\, novel algorithms are introduced for collaborative linear bandits\, offering a comprehensive exploration of the benefits of collaboration in the presence of adversaries through thorough analyses and lower bounds. The second chapter delves into multi-agent min-max learning problems by tackling the presence of Byzantine adversarial agents. Chapter three delves into the effects of delays within stochastic approximation schemes\, investigating non-asymptotic convergence rates under Markovian noise. \nMoving forward\, the fourth chapter focuses on analyzing the performance of standard min-max optimization algorithms with delayed updates. The fifth chapter concentrates on robustness in discrete learning\, specifically addressing convex-submodular problems in mixed continuous-discrete domains. The sixth chapter tackles the challenge of limited information access in collaborative problems with distributed constraints\, developing optimal algorithms for submodular maximization under distributed partition matroid constraints. \nLastly\, the seventh chapter introduces a discrete variant of multi-task learning and meta-learning. In summary\, this thesis contributes to the field of robust collaborative learning and decision-making by providing insights\, algorithms\, and theoretical guarantees in discrete and continuous optimization. The advancements made across linear bandits\, minimax optimization\, distributed robust learning\, delayed optimization\, and submodular maximization pave the way for future developments in collaborative and multi-task learning.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/ese-phd-thesis-defense-discrete-and-continuous-optimization-for-collaborative-and-multi-task-learning/
LOCATION:Room 452 C\, 3401 Walnut\, 3401 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Electrical and Systems Engineering":MAILTO:eseevents@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230712T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230712T103000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230629T134714Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230629T134714Z
UID:10007602-1689154200-1689157800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: "Transport and Mixing with Swimming Microorganisms in Chaotic Flows"
DESCRIPTION:Microorganisms\, primitive unicellular forms of life\, form the basis of the food web and play crucial roles in the Earth’s biogeochemical cycles. Habitats of microorganisms\, from oceans and lakes to soil and human intestines\, are often characterized by constant fluid motion. Fluid flow exerts forces and torques on microorganisms that affect their movement and distribution\, and transports essential chemicals on which they rely for sensing\, foraging\, and mating. As a result\, flow has a broad range of effects on the behaviors of microorganisms\, including their locomotion\, reproduction\, nutrient uptake\, and communication. Despite many efforts to understand microbiology in aquatic environments\, it remains a challenge to interpret the physical and biological behaviors of microorganisms in the presence of fluid flows\, particularly unsteady and chaotic flows. \nIn this thesis\, I investigate the interaction between motile microorganisms and dynamical structures in chaotic flows\, and the effects of such interaction on transport and mixing. The flow dynamical structures investigated here are known as the Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs). First\, I characterize the transport and mixing in a spatially periodic chaotic flow with swimming Escherichia coli. The microorganisms are found to align and accumulate near structures of strong stretching of fluid parcels\, or namely\, the hyperbolic LCSs. Such alignment and accumulation of microorganisms lead to reduction in large-scale transport but enhancement in small-scale mixing. Second\, I examine the transport and mixing with E. coli in a more complex spatially aperiodic chaotic flow. The microorganisms are found to escape and deplete in vortex-like dynamical structures known as the elliptic LCSs. The depletion leads to enhanced transport barriers into which the transport of diffusive chemicals is much slower. Lastly\, I investigate the mixing in the self-generated chaotic flows of swarming Serratia marcescens and show that dilute polymers can substantially enhance mixing induced by collective behaviors. Overall\, this dissertation elucidates the nontrivial effects of the interaction between microorganisms and flow structures on transport and mixing.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-ph-d-thesis-defense-transport-and-mixing-with-swimming-microorganisms-in-chaotic-flows/
LOCATION:Moore 212
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230711T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230711T120000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230627T141221Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230627T141221Z
UID:10007599-1689069600-1689076800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:BE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "Macrophages & chromosomal instability: From unraveling immunomodulatory interactions to effects of chromosomal instability on macrophage-mediated anti-tumor response" (Brandon Hayes)
DESCRIPTION:The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Dennis Discher are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Brandon Hayes.\n\n\n\nTitle: Macrophages & chromosomal instability: From unraveling immunomodulatory interactions to effects of chromosomal instability on macrophage-mediated anti-tumor response\n\n\nDate: July 11\, 2023\nTime: 10:00am\nLocation: Berger Auditorium in Skirkanich\n\nThe public is welcome to attend.\n\nZoom option:\nhttps://upenn.zoom.us/j/92480264650?pwd=d0JwaHBwejRkaThvTFovb0RLZVVvQT09 \n\nMeeting ID: 924 8026 4650\nPasscode: 834477
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/be-doctoral-dissertation-defense-macrophages-chromosomal-instability-from-unraveling-immunomodulatory-interactions-to-effects-of-chromosomal-instability-on-macrophage-mediated-anti-tumor-respons/
LOCATION:Berger Auditorium (Room 13)\, Skirkanich Hall\, 210 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Graduate,Student,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Bioengineering":MAILTO:be@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230711T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230711T113000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230628T203907Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230628T203907Z
UID:10007601-1689069600-1689075000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Seminar: "Semantic Localization\, Mapping\, and Exploration by Multiple Aerial Robots"
DESCRIPTION:Traditional approaches for active mapping focus on building geometric maps. For most real-world applications\, however\, actionable information is related to semantically meaningful objects in the environment. We propose an approach to the active metric-semantic mapping problem that enables multiple heterogeneous robots to collaboratively build a map of the environment. The robots actively explore to minimize the uncertainties in both semantic(object classification) and geometric (object modeling) information. We represent the environment using informative but sparse object models\, each consisting of a basic shape and a semantic class label\, and characterize uncertainties empirically using a large amount of real-world data. Given a prior map\, we use this model to select actions for each robot to minimize uncertainties. The performance of our algorithm is demonstrated through multi-robot experiments in diverse real-world environments. The proposed framework is applicable to a wide range of real-world problems\, such as precision agriculture\, infrastructure inspection\, and asset mapping in factories.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-seminar-semantic-localization-mapping-and-exploration-by-multiple-aerial-robots/
LOCATION:Moore 212
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230710T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230710T163000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230627T140337Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230627T140337Z
UID:10007598-1688999400-1689006600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:BE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "The roles of YAP and TAZ in fetal bone development" (Joseph Collins)
DESCRIPTION:The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Joel Boerckel are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Joseph Collins.\n \nTitle: The roles of YAP and TAZ in fetal bone development\n\nDate: July 10\, 2023 \nTime: 2:30pm\nLocation: CRB Austrian Auditorium\n\nThe public is welcome to attend.\n\n\nJoin Zoom Meeting\nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/4136654254?pwd=YWNLamdUKys4L09yWVVVU0NxTXBSQT09 \nMeeting ID: 413 665 4254\nPasscode: 01093
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/9295/
LOCATION:CRB Auditorium\, 415 Curie Boulevard\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Graduate,Student,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Bioengineering":MAILTO:be@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230710T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230710T140000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230616T131612Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230616T131612Z
UID:10007587-1688994000-1688997600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:PSOC@Penn Seminar: Larry Dooling
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/psocpenn-seminar-larry-dooling/
LOCATION:Raisler Lounge (Room 225)\, Towne Building\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar,Postdoctoral
ORGANIZER;CN="PSOC":MAILTO:manu@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230710T123000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230710T143000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230710T121407Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230710T121407Z
UID:10007607-1688992200-1688999400@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:ESE PhD Thesis Defense: "A Robot's Search for Meaning: Semantics as a Common Representation for Heterogeneous Robot State Estimation and Collaboration"
DESCRIPTION:Mapping and navigation have gone hand-in-hand since long before robots existed. For almost as long\, maps have also been a key form of communication\, allowing someone who has never been to an area to nonetheless navigate that area successfully. In the context of multi-robot systems\, the maps and information that flow between robots are what enables effective collaboration\, whether those robots are operating simultaneously or years apart in time. In this thesis\, we argue that maps must go beyond encoding purely geometric or color information in order to enable increasingly complex autonomy\, particularly between robots. We propose systems for mapping and localization\, showing that semantic maps can be an important end in themselves as well as a means to achieve improved global localization in a variety of contexts. We then build on these ideas and employ semantic maps to underly a framework for multi-robot autonomy\, focusing in particular on air and ground robots. A distinguishing characteristic of this thesis is that we strongly emphasize field experiments and testing\, and we demonstrate that these ideas can work at scale in the real world. We also perform extensive simulation experiments to validate our ideas at even larger scales. These experiments and systems constitute a step forward in large-scale\, collaborative multi-robot systems operating with real communication\, navigation\, and perception constraints.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/ese-phd-thesis-defense-a-robots-search-for-meaning-semantics-as-a-common-representation-for-heterogeneous-robot-state-estimation-and-collaboration/
LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Electrical and Systems Engineering":MAILTO:eseevents@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230710T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230710T110000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230629T143806Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230629T143806Z
UID:10007603-1688983200-1688986800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: "Data-Driven Model Discovery for Non-Equilibrium Phenomena: Unraveling Continuum Behavior from Stochastic Dynamics"
DESCRIPTION:Non-equilibrium phenomena are ubiquitous across material systems and of great technological relevance. Examples of such phenomena include diffusion processes in liquid and gases\, viscoelasticity and plasticity in solids\, and rheological behavior of colloidal and granular media. Despite their ubiquity and importance\, the understanding of non-equilibrium phenomena remains in its infancy compared with classical equilibrium thermodynamics and statistical mechanics from both theoretical and computational aspects. As a consequence\, current modeling and simulation strategies\, including multiscale paradigms\, are mostly trapped within a compromise between computational efficiency and physical fidelity. \nThis thesis leverages recent advances in non-equilibrium physics\, together with emerging machine learning techniques\, to develop theoretical and computational paradigms for learning continuum evolution equations using data-driven methods. First\, we present a new strategy for continuum model discovery that uses fluctuation theorems\, particularly\, the Jarzynski equality\, to identify the reversible (elastic) and irreversible (dissipative) response. Second\, we propose a machine learning architecture called Variational Onsager Neural Networks (VONNs) to learn thermodynamically consistent non-equilibrium evolution PDEs based on Onsager’s variational principle. Thirdly\, we develop a multiscale machine learning framework called Statistical-Physics-Informed Neural Networks (Stat-PINNs) to uniquely determine coarse-grained dissipative evolution equations from stochastic particle dynamics by leveraging fluctuation-dissipation relations. Lastly\, we introduce a statistical mechanics framework with quantified uncertainty to extrapolate material behavior to different loading conditions (including far-from-equilibrium conditions) or material systems.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-ph-d-thesis-defense-data-driven-model-discovery-for-non-equilibrium-phenomena-unraveling-continuum-behavior-from-stochastic-dynamics/
LOCATION:Towne 307\, 220 S. 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230707T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230707T160000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230621T170312Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230621T170312Z
UID:10007594-1688738400-1688745600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:BE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "In Situ and In Vivo Roles of Focal Adhesion Kinase in Tendon Development and Mechanotransduction" (Thomas Leahy)
DESCRIPTION:The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Louis Soslowsky are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Thomas Leahy.\n\nTitle:  “In Situ and In Vivo Roles of Focal Adhesion Kinase in Tendon Development and Mechanotransduction”\n\nDate: July 7\, 2023\nTime: 2:00PM\nLocation: CRB Austrian Auditorium \nZoom link\n\n\n\nThe public is welcome to attend.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/be-doctoral-dissertation-defense-in-situ-and-in-vivo-roles-of-focal-adhesion-kinase-in-tendon-development-and-mechanotransduction-thomas-leahy/
LOCATION:CRB Auditorium\, 415 Curie Boulevard\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Graduate,Student,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Bioengineering":MAILTO:be@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230706T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230706T140000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230626T125734Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230626T125734Z
UID:10007597-1688648400-1688652000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: "Adding Actuation to Found Material: A Design Methodology"
DESCRIPTION:Engineers in modern society are taught to design and build structures and robots from pre-processed materials\, giving them the ability to describe the operating capacity of their structure with a high degree of certainty. From a disaster recovery and robust systems point of view\, this is a severe limitation. Rather than use processed material of known mechanical properties\, we investigate how to use ”found” material\, or preexisting material located at the deployment site\, to build and repair new and existing systems. \nWe begin by introducing a new design methodology for building with found materials. The methodology is compared with the standard engineering design process to identify the areas where a user must deviate from the standard practice. We investigate two of these deviations\, focusing on material identification and designing with that material as well as actuator integration with the found materials. The work uses experimental results to validate the actuator integration\, using both wood and ice as structural bases. \nWe review current research in the field of found materials and self-replication before presenting our work. Our contributions include a design methodology for using found material\, techniques to design structures from found material\, and actuator integration with ice and wood. We summarize these techniques through the construction of a variety of robots and structures including StickBot\, a flexible robotic system; IceBot\, a ground-based rover vehicle from ice; and an ice arm capable of cutting blocks of ice into arm segments for future use.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-ph-d-thesis-defense-adding-actuation-to-found-material-a-design-methodology/
LOCATION:Levine 307\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230706T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230706T120000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230622T130209Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230622T130209Z
UID:10007595-1688637600-1688644800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CBE PhD Thesis Defense: "Comparative analysis of aneuploidy in suspension cancer lines and solid tumors: insights from single cell sequencing approaches"
DESCRIPTION:Aneuploidy\, a cancer hallmark\, has intrigued researchers due to its near-universal presence in cancer. However\, studying its impact is challenging due to the involvement of numerous genes and the difficulty in creating suitable models. Advances in sequencing technology and the vast data available in the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) enabled us to use the p53-null suspension cancer cell line\, THP-1\, as a model to explore genomic instability in hematopoietic cancer. We aimed to understand why non-adherent cancers typically exhibit lower aneuploidy levels compared to solid tumors. Through an examination of the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) and the application of physical and chemical perturbations\, we discovered that suspension cancer lines displayed no discernible differences in SAC functionality or sensitivity to external perturbations compared to solid tumors. Notably\, chemical perturbations led to the emergence of copy number variations (CNVs) that provided proliferative advantages to daughter cells. Introduction of p53 into THP-1 did not rescue aneuploidy levels\, aligning with previous research suggesting its upstream role in suppressing aneuploidy. However\, the introduction of p53 did restore downstream p21 pathways\, which are known to suppress cancer cell proliferation. Interestingly\, the expected growth suppression was found to be independent of p21 levels. Furthermore\, the engineered THP-1 exhibited reduced p53 levels after treatment with reversine and etoposide\, unlike adherent cancer cells. These findings indicate distinct p53 pathways in liquid cancer lines that ensure genomic integrity. For future CNV analysis\, we introduced the live cell ChReporter\, enabling non-invasive tracing of CNV status without compromising cell viability.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cbe-phd-thesis-defense-comparative-analysis-of-aneuploidy-in-suspension-cancer-lines-and-solid-tumors-insights-from-single-cell-sequencing-approaches/
LOCATION:Glandt Forum\, Singh Center for Nanotechnology\, 3205 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering":MAILTO:cbemail@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230705T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230705T100000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230629T151247Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230629T151247Z
UID:10007604-1688551200-1688551200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:ESE PhD Thesis Defense: "Chemical vapor deposition synthesis of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides and their applications"
DESCRIPTION:2D materials is a rapidly expanding class of materials that have captivated academia and industry with their ultrathin nature and remarkable properties. Graphene\, the first discovered material\, shows exceptional mechanical strength and superior electrical properties\, presenting exciting probabilities in many applications. Combined with its large surface area and biocompatibility\, graphene is particularly promising for the development of highly sensitive and selective biosensors. However\, the application of graphene is limited by its lack of a bandgap\, making it unusable for advanced logic circuits. 2D materials beyond graphene are thus being explored. Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are representative candidates possessing a variety of properties including tunable bandgaps. Conventionally\, both graphene and TMDs are produced by mechanical exfoliation\, but this method is low-yield and not suitable for large-scale applications such as biosensing. Therefore\, a reliable synthesis strategy for these materials is urgently needed. In this thesis\, synthesis of graphene and TMDs by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is explored. The CVD synthesized graphene sheet has monolayer structure which can be inch scale in size\, enabling the scalable fabrication of graphene biosensors. We develop the fabrication process of graphene biosensors and explore their biosensing applications\, where the sensors are used to study the interaction between a specially designed water-soluble mu opioid receptor (wsMOR) and G-protein. The biosensors are able to record the in vitro interaction between the two molecules with high sensitivity. The CVD growth of TMDs is also investigated. Rapid growth of inch-scale monolayer MoSe2 continuous film has been synthesized on insulating substrates\, based on a spin-coating\, NaCl assisted CVD approach. This approach is promising to be extended to the growth of other semiconducting TMDs\, benefit to the batch production of large-area TMD electronics. Additionally\, we studied the CVD synthesis of TMDs with controlled layer numbers at controlled locations. Various approaches are used to demonstrate the high quality of the materials and field-effect transistor measurements indicate their potential in making advanced electronic devices.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/ese-phd-thesis-defense-chemical-vapor-deposition-synthesis-of-graphene-and-transition-metal-dichalcogenides-and-their-applications/
LOCATION:Room 337\, Towne Building\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Electrical and Systems Engineering":MAILTO:eseevents@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230629T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230629T120000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230615T131434Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230615T131434Z
UID:10007583-1688032800-1688040000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:BE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "Novel Applications of In Vivo Assays\, Microdialysis and Photoacoustic Ultrasound\, Throughout Rat Achilles Tendon Injury and Healing" (Joseph Newton)
DESCRIPTION:The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Louis Soslowsky are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Joseph Newton.\n\n\nTitle: Novel Applications of In Vivo Assays\, Microdialysis and Photoacoustic Ultrasound\, Throughout Rat Achilles Tendon Injury and Healing\n\nDate and Time: June 29th\, 10:00am EST\nLocation: CRB Austrian Auditorium\nZoom: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/93571878070?pwd=c2NIN1A5Zmw2M0lZSnQ0d3hmMG52UT09\n\nThe public is welcome to attend.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/be-doctoral-dissertation-defense-novel-applications-of-in-vivo-assays-microdialysis-and-photoacoustic-ultrasound-throughout-rat-achilles-tendon-injury-and-healing-joseph-newton/
LOCATION:CRB Auditorium\, 415 Curie Boulevard\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Graduate,Student,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Bioengineering":MAILTO:be@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230628T123000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230628T133000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230623T160915Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230623T160915Z
UID:10007596-1687955400-1687959000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: "Design and Self-Reconfiguration Planning for Variable Topology Truss Robots"
DESCRIPTION:A modular self-reconfigurable robot (MSRR) is a set of robotic building blocks that can be connected together in different ways. By rearranging these connections\, the robot can adapt its shape to address a wider variety of tasks than a robot with a fixed morphology. However\, traditional modular architectures fail to scale up to address large-scale and high-force applications. To meet these challenges\, we introduce the first self-reconfigurable modular truss robot system. The Variable Topology Truss (VTT) is a synthesis of two robot paradigms: MSRRs and variable geometry truss robots (VGTs). The structural efficiency of the truss architecture alleviates scaling issues with modular robots\, while the task flexibility afforded by reconfiguration expands the possible applications of parallel robots. \nWe first demonstrate hardware prototypes of the components necessary to build a VTT\, which include a novel reconfigurable spherical joint and an improved version of a high extension ratio linear actuator. Then\, we characterize the reconfiguration capability afforded by the new mechanisms and apply graph-theoretic techniques to enumerate all possible reconfigurable truss topologies up to a certain size. With these techniques\, we can identify potential sequences of actions that reconfigure between desired start and goal topologies. However\, the entangled nature of the truss architecture presents new challenges for collision-free motion planning. The self-collision constraints divide up the configuration space into many disconnected regions. We develop a mathematical invariant inspired by knot theory—the link-augmented graph—which serves as a test to quickly prove when certain configurations lie in disconnected regions. This invariant can be combined with more traditional planning techniques to boost their performance on truss-like robots\, which we demonstrate with a new variant of RRT-Connect. Finally\, we combine the topological reconfiguration planning with the link-augmented graph and geometric planner to create a multi-modal planner for VTT. This planner is capable of finding a sequence of collision-free paths and reconfiguration actions that transform a VTT from a given start configuration to a goal configuration.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-ph-d-thesis-defense-design-and-self-reconfiguration-planning-for-variable-topology-truss-robots/
LOCATION:Room 337\, Towne Building\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230627T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230627T113000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230620T133652Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230620T133652Z
UID:10007593-1687860000-1687865400@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Seminar: "Multi-robot Coordination Via Graph-based Computation"
DESCRIPTION:Multi-robot coordination and cooperation are critical behaviors that improve team performance and enable new tasks in application areas like autonomous construction\, agriculture\, and extended\noperation in large unknown regions. This talk explores the utility of graph-based modeling and computational frameworks to improve the coordination and cooperation of multi-robot teams in a variety of problems. I will introduce a graph-based modeling and solution approach to multi-robot task allocation in complex multi-task missions where coordination and cooperation are explicitly required. I will discuss preliminary results\, which show a vast improvement over the state of the art\, and limitations of these results and my plans to address these limitations. I will also briefly introduce graph-based computation via Graph Neural Networks applied to the distributed multi-agent coverage control problem. These modeling approaches and algorithms bring performance improvements that further the state of the art by leveraging the fundamental graph structure present in some multi-robot problems.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-seminar-multi-robot-coordination-via-graph-based-computation/
LOCATION:Towne 337
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230626T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230626T160000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230614T132304Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230614T132304Z
UID:10007581-1687788000-1687795200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:BE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: “Decellularized Cartilage for Airway Repair” (Paul Gehret)
DESCRIPTION:The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Riccardo Gottardi are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Paul Gehret. \nTitle: “Decellularized Cartilage for Airway Repair”. \nDate: June 26\, 2023 \nTime: 2:00 PM \nLocation: Wu and Chen Auditorium in Levine Hall \nThe public is welcome to attend.\nJoin Zoom Meeting\nhttps://upenn.zoom.us/j/7937445851?pwd=RUJYZFNhOWVyRmM5QzZUb3FoaDRxZz09 \nMeeting ID: 793 744 5851\nPasscode: 062623
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/be-doctoral-dissertation-defense-decellularized-cartilage-for-airway-repair-paul-gehret/
LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Graduate,Student,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Bioengineering":MAILTO:be@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230626T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230626T140000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230616T131357Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230616T131357Z
UID:10007586-1687784400-1687788000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:PSOC@Penn Seminar: Mai Wang
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/psocpenn-seminar-mai-wang/
LOCATION:Towne 337
CATEGORIES:Seminar,Doctoral,Graduate,Student
ORGANIZER;CN="PSOC":MAILTO:manu@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230622T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230622T143000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230615T155111Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230615T155111Z
UID:10007584-1687438800-1687444200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MSE PhD Defense: Autonomous Stimuli-Responsive Metamaterials Based on Liquid Crystal Elastomers
DESCRIPTION:Numerous responsive materials have been developed in recent decades and applied toward engineering challenges ranging from medicine to robotics. For example\, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)\, hydrogels\, shape memory polymers (SMPs)\, liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs)\, and many other materials can be engineered to respond to many environmental stimuli\, such as non-polar solvents\, humidity\, heat\, light\, magnetic fields\, and electric fields. However\, there are some major limitations with most responsive materials: they typically respond slowly to the environment\, and the deformation triggered by the environmental input is often small. In this dissertation\, we propose to address these limitations by integrating responsive materials with mechanical metamaterials that are governed by scale-independent nonlinear mechanisms. These mechanisms can amplify and speed up the deformation of the responsive materials beyond what is possible for the responsive material\nby itself. \nIn this dissertation\, we specifically focus on the use of nonlinear mechanisms to improve the responsiveness of LCEs to changing heat or light in the environment\, enabling autonomous\, large-amplitude\, rapid deformation in engineered systems. We demonstrate the potential utility of this strategy in several contexts. First\, we engineer a metamaterial based on rotating squares with hinges consisting of LCE-PDMS bilayers. These bilayers\, combined with geometric properties\, such as the hinge thickness\, determine how the metamaterial deforms in response to temperature variations in the environment\, including the possibility of achieving either local or global deformation changes in response to localized temperature variations. Next\, we build a kirigami-inspired robot that autonomously changes its trajectory in response to the environment\, without any electronic controlsystem. The LCEs govern the behavior of modular “control units” that can be placed throughout the kirigami. These\, in turn\, locally impose mechanical constraints that control how the kirigami bends\, and thereby where the robot moves. Finally\, with the goal of attaining autonomous functional changes beyond what simple mechanical constraints can achieve\, we explore the idea of using LCEs\, in combination with hydrogels\, to regulate pneumatic circuits. We integrate LCEs with modular mechanical valves. We achieve basic logic gates and construct fluidic networks that can regulate the output pressure based on the local environment. We use this strategy to autonomously control the trajectory and function soft pneumatic robots. These prototypes illustrate the potential for designing autonomous intelligent materials that rapidly and autonomously undergo large-amplitude shape and functional transformations in response to their environment. The principles developed in this dissertation can\, in principle\, be implemented at smaller length scales in the future\, e.g.\, to develop responsive/intelligent metamaterial systems for micro- or medical robotics.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/mse-phd-defense-autonomous-stimuli-responsive-metamaterials-based-on-liquid-crystal-elastomers/
LOCATION:Towne 227 (MEAM Conference Room)\, 220 S. 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Materials Science and Engineering":MAILTO:johnruss@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230621T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230621T110000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230620T124224Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230620T124224Z
UID:10007592-1687341600-1687345200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: "Addressing Stiffness-induced Challenges In Modeling and Identification of Rigid Body Systems with Frictional Impact"
DESCRIPTION:Imperfect but useful dynamical models have enabled significant progress in planning and controlling robotic locomotion and manipulation. Traditionally\, these models have been physics-based\, with accuracy relying upon manual calibration only feasible in laboratory environments. As robotics expands into complex real-world applications\, models must instead be automatically fit to limited data. One major challenge is modeling frictional contact\, especially during collisions involved in common robotics tasks. Rapid deformation under impact manifests as extreme sensitivity to initial conditions and material properties. Thus\, even slight errors in state estimation and system identification can lead to significant prediction errors. Consequently\, model inaccuracy or the sim-to-real gap often hinders the development of performant robotics algorithms. \nWhen only a few parameters are unknown\, physical models can be optimized using advanced techniques to overcome these challenges. However\, even with accurately identified parameters\, roboticists must make inaccurate rigid-body approximations to reduce the computational burdens of physical simulation to meet faster-than-real-time requirements. An alternative black-box approach has attempted to address these issues\, in which dynamical models are learned from scratch\, for instance using deep neural networks (DNN’s). While DNNs in theory can capture any dynamical behavior\, they have empirically struggled with the stiff behaviors associated with contact. \nThe dissertation instead focuses on scaling physical model identification to the high-dimensional setting and quantifying the limited accuracy of low-fidelity physics models. We consider rigid bodies undergoing rigid contact\, for which infinite stiffness is represented as constrained optimization inside the dynamics. By careful treatment of these constraints\, we demonstrate that infinitely-stiff dynamics can be identified by optimizing a non-stiff objective. In conjunction\, we use DNN’s in a white-box setting to model purely physical quantities\, specifically reconstructing geometries from scratch. We then consider how the simplified rigid-body view of collisions lacks fidelity to correctly predict the outcomes of nearly-simultaneous collisions—such as heel and toe strikes during a foot step. We develop a theoretical basis to capture partial knowledge of such events as uncertain set-valued outcomes\, and again use numerical optimization to compute approximations of such sets.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-ph-d-thesis-defense-addressing-stiffness-induced-challenges-in-modeling-and-identification-of-rigid-body-systems-with-frictional-impact/
LOCATION:Moore 216\, 200 S. 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230620T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230620T140000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230616T131007Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230616T131007Z
UID:10007585-1687266000-1687269600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:PSOC@Penn Seminar: Michael Tobin
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/psocpenn-seminar-michael-tobin/
LOCATION:Towne 327
CATEGORIES:Seminar,Doctoral,Graduate,Student
ORGANIZER;CN="PSOC":MAILTO:manu@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230620T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230620T130000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230613T154734Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230613T154734Z
UID:10007580-1687262400-1687266000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Design\, Characterization\, and Fabrication of Low-Cost\, Passive\, and Biodegradable Sensors For Precision Agriculture”
DESCRIPTION:With the global population projected to reach 9.1 billion people by 2050 there is a need to develop highly efficient agricultural systems that maximize crop yield. Precision Agriculture (PA) systems enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT) offer a potential solution through improvements in labor\, resource\, and time efficiency to improve agricultural output. PA systems enable this by providing a detailed characterization of field environment (e.g.\, soil moisture\, pH\, temperature\, etc.) so that these resources can be properly deployed spatially and temporally. To realize these systems\, sensors that give information about the state of the field are required. However\, for the technology to be scalable and practically implemented\, these sensors must balance performance and cost. These requirements limit the materials and methods that can be used to develop the technology\, including many that are common in modern sensor development. Additionally\, the challenge of biocompatibility and biodegradability must be addressed. \nIn this work\, a passive RF sensing system is presented for the detection of soil moisture. First\, a fabrication process for a fully biodegradable cellulose nanofibril (CNF) based composite substrate is presented. By using small quantities of CNF\, we are able to planarize the surface of a pulp-based cardstock paper to achieve smooth surfaces that are suitable for the fabrication of electrical structures. Next\, the hygroscopic properties of cellulose are leveraged to develop a capacitive sensor that utilizes the substrate as the sensing mechanism. By utilizing screen printing\, we repeatably produce capacitive structures with a high degree of fidelity. We demonstrate the ability to detect both humidity and soil moisture over a wide range and show the ability of the sensor to operate within the 902 – 928 MHz band. Additionally\, sensor cycling and repeatability is demonstrated\, a key requirement for in-field application. \nFinally\, integration and packaging of the sensor is investigated. Capacitive structures are integrated into a wired PCB system and are shown to exhibit good performance. Natural wax-based packagings are also explored\, with mechanical characterization of various wax mixtures conducted to choose a suitable candidate. We show that the selected wax mixture can protect devices in a soil environment while still enabling capacitive sensing\, demonstrating the ability for natural waxes to be used as a suitable packaging material for biodegradable sensors.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-ph-d-thesis-defense-design-characterization-and-fabrication-of-low-cost-passive-and-biodegradable-sensors-for-precision-agriculture/
LOCATION:Room 337\, Towne Building\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230620T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230620T233000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230615T130946Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230615T130946Z
UID:10007582-1687255200-1687303800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:MEAM Seminar: "Computationally-constrained Dynamically-feasible Search-based Motion Planning"
DESCRIPTION:Planning fast and autonomous robotic motion in unstructured\, cluttered environments remains a core challenge of the robotics community. The robot’s motion must be agile and dynamic\, operating near the limit of its physical capabilities\, to reach its goal location as quickly as possible. Fast motion in turn creates a need for fast plan computation over large and complex areas of the robots environment. Search-based planning\, entailing search over trajectory-based graphs\, offers a theoretically grounded method to plan optimal motion that is dynamically feasible. However\, the computational footprint of this approach is often too burdensome\, as graph search speed scales inversely with the size of the planning graph. To tackle this challenge\, we concentrate on designing a sparse planning graph and dynamically determining the required graph size based on obstacle density. \nWe introduce a method for selecting vertices and edges in a motion primitive graph grounded in statistical dispersion\, which ensures guarantees on planner completeness. By minimizing dispersion of graph vertices in the trajectory cost-induced metric space\, our approach efficiently covers the space of feasible trajectories. Our motion primitive graphs outperform baseline methods\, with lower dispersion\, fewer iterations of graph search\, and fewer tunable parameters. \nWhile this method can generate high-quality graphs of a specified size\, the selection of this size has significant effects on planner performance. Sparser graphs may miss a narrow corridor that the plan must traverse\, while denser ones may result in excessive computation time. We address this tradeoff with a framework consisting of two parts: offline maximization of planner completeness for several graph sizes\, and online dynamic adjustment of the graph size based on empirical planner performance. Through real world experiments in cluttered pine forests\, we demonstrate the real-time adaptability of the planner to different environments\, enabling flight up to 2.5 m/s in varying tree densities. \nFinally\, we explore the integration of trajectory optimization with search-based planning\, highlighting the potential synergies between these approaches and providing design tradeoffs.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-seminar-computationally-constrained-dynamically-feasible-search-based-motion-planning/
LOCATION:Room 337\, Towne Building\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Seminar
ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230619T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230619T120000
DTSTAMP:20260404T070636
CREATED:20230613T144457Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230613T144457Z
UID:10007579-1687168800-1687176000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com
SUMMARY:CBE PhD Thesis Defense: "Electrochemical and Heterogeneous Catalysis for Selected Industrial Commodities"
DESCRIPTION:            Novel high-surface-area catalysts were synthesized for selected industrial chemical reactions\, conducted in heterogeneous reactors and electrochemical reactors. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) was used to synthesize highly dispersed metal catalysts and to deposit uniform oxide thin films on porous supports. \n            The interaction between Cu catalyst and its oxide support was studied for the water-gas-shift reaction\, a critically important reaction for maximizing the H2 production from syngas. The ALD-prepared Cu catalyst demonstrated ten times more reactivity than the impregnated Cu catalyst with the same metal loading and surface area. The selected oxide supports did not show promotion effects for the reaction\, but some mild stabilization over long-term aging was observed. In another case\, the selective oxidation of butane to maleic anhydride was studied on an ALD-prepared vanadium phosphate catalyst with eight times more surface area compared to the commercial bulk catalyst. Furthermore\, an ALD-prepared CaO/MgAl2O4 catalyst was studied for the aldol condensation of furfural and ketones/aldehydes to form precursors of lubricant oils and surfactants. The side reaction\, Cannizaro reaction\, was investigated for the long-term use of this catalyst. \n            Lastly\, ammonia synthesis was studied in a solid oxide electrochemical cell made with the state-of-the-art proton conductor BZCYYb (BaZr0.1Ce0.7Y0.1Yb0.1O3−δ). Instead of using both high temperature and high pressure in the commercial Haber-Bosch process\, this reaction was carried out under ambient pressure. The proton recombination was found to be barrierless on the cell surface\, greatly limiting the selectivity to ammonia. The implications of this phenomenon and its suppression were discussed.
URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cbe-phd-thesis-defense-electrochemical-and-heterogeneous-catalysis-for-selected-industrial-commodities/
LOCATION:Towne 225
CATEGORIES:Dissertation or Thesis Defense
ORGANIZER;CN="Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering":MAILTO:cbemail@seas.upenn.edu
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR